Congratulations to Dan Stevens' team, who found the treasure the night of March 26. Below are all the clues and their explanations.

Monday, 7 a.m.

Good luck! Here we are – at last, the hunt!
In March’s new snow and spring mud’s brunt,
The token awaits in open air,
But where it was put – it just ain’t fair!

The token is out in the open. The references to snow and mud and the hiding place being unfair suggest the token may be well out in the wilds.

Monday, 1:30 p.m.

Oh dear, you should think you’ll never see,
A poem as lov’ly as a tree,
Yet poetic hints will shed much light,
It’s pinned to a trunk: Joyce Kilmer’s height!

The token is pinned to a tree trunk at the height of Joyce Kilmer, who wrote the poem "Trees" that is parodied.

Monday, 5 p.m.

Step one as you reach near token’s lair,
Is finding a question, right mid-air,
It’s far from the lot on trail’s route,
Steps two up to five – the fifth’s the loot!

There are five steps to finding the treasure, the fifth being the token itself. Step one is “finding a question” – actually finding a question mark pinned to a tree. “Far from the lot on trail’s route” suggests that a trail must be taken, that it starts at a parking lot, and that considerable hiking is necessary to reach the first step, the question mark.

Tuesday, 7 a.m.

Sometimes the old token’s under wraps,
Sometimes it’s by roads that show on maps,
Sometimes it’s by buildings we all know,
This year, for all three, the answer’s: NO!

The token this year is not concealed in any way, it is not in the vicinity of any kind of regular road, and it is not near any building.

Tuesday, 1:30 p.m.

Five needles per bunch has our state tree,
And flower – its cone with tassel be,
This clue clears so much of token’s doubt,
In different ways: zoom in; zoom out.

The eastern white pine is our Maine state tree and our state flower is the white pine cone with tassel.

It has five needles per bundle, unlike the red pine or pitch pine. On a small scale (zoom in), the token is pinned to a white pine. On a large scale (zoom out), the token is on the Pine Tree Property of the Boothbay Region Land Trust, off route 96 east of Eastern Avenue.

Tuesday, 5 p.m.

Here comes your dear literary clue,
Take x then less y – add “made,” it’s true,
Try “babbling” and “Kurtz,” no head aloof,
And have not a doubt: it’s Google-proof!

Take “x” (the minuend) less “y” (the subtrahend) and you get the difference. Difference + made suggest the last line in Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken: “And that has made all the difference.” “Babbling” refers to Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s The Babbling Brook. Kurtz refers not to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness but to the opening of T. S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men, “Mistah Kurtz – he dead.” “No head aloof” refers to the headless horseman in Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

The upshot is that you need to take the road less traveled (the logging road from the loop trail at the BRLT Pine Tree property), there’s a brook involved (you cross it right before you get to the treasure area), and a hollow (the treasure area is in a hollow) or something hollow (there are two hollow trees right near the treasure) are involved. An effort was made to make the searchers find somebody with considerable knowledge of the masterpieces and avoid anyone using a search engine to decipher the clue!

Wednesday, 7 a.m.

Through alders and cut wood stacked by side,
‘Tween two big white pines – the trail is wide,
Then pass by a haunting long-dead tree,
Put trust in your serendipity.

The loop trail at the Pine Tree property, taken clockwise from the parking lot, passes through an open meadow with many alders, then by some cut and stacked wood, then right between two huge white pine trees, and then right next to a very large and haunting dead tree.

Wednesday, 1:30 p.m.

Some think it’s a hoot they used lime green,
With pinkish surveyor’s tape, so keen,
Adorning the stakes on token’s quest,
There’s blue and some green near treasure’s nest.

The stakes used to delimit the relatively new loop trail through the Pine Tree property have been painted lime green and each of them has a piece of pink surveyor’s tape at the top. Next to the logging road in the vicinity of the token’s hiding place one can find two pieces of blue and one piece of green surveyor’s tape.

Wednesday, 5p.m.

This clue says a lot ‘bout token’s licks,
If only in code – a hairy fix,
But here on this page – a downy myth,
Is what you can say is flicker’s pith.

The hairy woodpecker, the downy woodpecker, and the flicker are three woodpeckers indigenous to Maine. One woodpecker hole of significant diameter in a hollow tree is very obvious from the logging road in the area where the token is hidden. Another, in another hollow tree thirteen feet from the first, faces away from the logging road.

Thursday, 7 a.m.

The hills do abound throughout the tract,
A sculpture of sticks, all tied and racked,
A call of the wild – to take a hike,
Go clockwise on loop – your mojo psych!

This clue describes the Pine Tree property, and particularly the entrance area. The stick sculpture and a hand-written injunction to “take a hike” on a kiosk are adjacent to the parking lot off route 96. The clue also tells the searcher to take the loop trail (shown as “Loop” on the trail map) clockwise – to the left.

Thursday, 1:30 p.m.

Pi radians you should loop halfway,
To zenith of loop, or so they say,
Four blazes, three signs of Land Trust. Lost?
Which way do you turn? Ask Robert Frost!

The searchers should follow the loop trail halfway around (pi radians = 180º) to the furthest point (the “zenith”), where the four blazes and three BRLT Trail signs will be found. This is at the junction with the “Logging Road,” as it is called on the map. There is no sign for the junction and the logging road trail itself is unblazed and unmarked, but it is quite obvious. Nevertheless, it is decidedly “the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference,” to quote Frost.

Thursday, 5 p.m.

In perfectly calm ubiquity,
In spirits of dear antiquity,
The horses and skids, the woodsmen’s hook,
On tow road’s traverse o’er winding brook.

In the old days, the woodsmen harvesting the timber from the property would have used the logging road, which is now a trail. And it traverses a winding brook – right near the token’s hiding place.

Friday, 7 a.m.

Progressively find two question marks,
In deepest of woods the token harks,
Step three, though – you may yourself anoint,
You guessed! It’s an exclamation point!

Steps one and two, as referred to in the Monday 5 p.m. clue, are question marks. The first is on the loop trail just before the junction with the logging road trail. The second is on the hollow tree with the woodpecker hole facing the logging road trail from 12 feet away, and just 23 feet past the crossing of the brook. Step three, an exclamation point, is on the second hollow tree right near its woodpecker hole. This tree is 13 feet from the first and the hole faces away from the trail. “Deepest of woods” indicates that a good amount of hiking is involved.

Friday, 1:30 p.m.

A woodpecker hole in hollow tree,
It leads to another – that’s step three,
Go nor ‘east to quad tree, thirty feet,
There step four awaits, a point so neat.

The first hollow tree (with the question mark) leads to the second hollow tree (with an exclamation point). Travel northeast 30 feet from this second hollow tree to a quadruple-trunked tree that has another exclamation point pinned to the side away from the trail. This is step four, and it is only 20 feet from the white pine holding the token.

Friday, 5 p.m.

In Pine Tree Preserve, from parking lot,
Get onto the loop to junction’s spot,
Cross brook past the turn on logging road,
Four rods to the nor‘east – mother lode!

The token itself is four rods (66 feet) northeast of the brook crossing on the logging road trail, dangling from a pin in a white pine tree.

We hope everybody had tons of fun searching, a special thanks to the Boothbay Region Land Trust, and many thanks for our 38 years serving the public at Ebb Tide.